Judy Halbert retweeted
This is really great
About a year ago, a Princeton student named Kyler Zhou was sitting in traffic in New Jersey. At some point he was so bored that he put on a podcast with… me 🙃
It was my usual talk about the talent crisis. About the smartest kids of a generation going to work for McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, while the biggest problems in the world go unsolved, blablabla, you may have heard it by now ;)
What’s interesting is what happened next. As soon as Kyler got home, he emailed me and The School for Moral Ambition (the organization we started to get talented people working on the world's biggest problems).
Kyler wanted to bring this to Princeton.
Well, we told him no 😅. We had just launched our first university fellowship at Harvard, and there was no capacity for a second campus...
Kyler decided to ignore us. Three days into the semester, he launched the first* Moral Ambition Chapter at a university in the United States. In just a few days, more than 120 Princeton students signed up. In November of last year I visited, and the energy was simply AMAZING.
Since then, everything has been escalating. Students have started Moral Ambition Chapters at Brown, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and 5 other campuses – often before we've heard of them.
Which brings me to today. After the launch of our Harvard Fellowship (8% of ALL Harvard juniors applied to the first cohort!), we're now also launching Moral Ambition Fellowships at Princeton, Brown, Vanderbilt and Stanford. The program is simple: twelve super talented students per campus, a $15,000 stipend, and a summer working full-time on the most important causes of our time, like lead poisoning or child poverty or ending factory farming or AI safety etc. – instead of polishing a boring corporate pitch deck.
It's just incredible to see how quickly this movement is growing. Every year, thousands of brilliant graduates are funneled into corporate careers that add little to the world. More and more of them are starting to walk the other way.
(For students: applications for Harvard, Princeton, Brown and Vanderbilt are open now. Stanford opens October 6. moralambition.org/fellowship…)
* Brown University claims that they were actually the first – I've decided to stay neutral in this quarrel 😅
Strong argument and important questions. Thanks, Andy.
There is a dubious collective folly emerging that high @OECDEduSkills PISA scores are due to explicit teaching, aligned curriculum, and firm behaviour strategies – as in, the, er, recently Conservative England of @NickGibbUK & @michaelgove, for example.
But outside of the Asian high performers that require a separate post, there are some inconvenient patterns for this argument.
In reading, Ireland is top. It has none of the proclaimed super-strict strategies of England, but it does have a phenomenal record on other metrics of wellbeing. Canada and the US are just 4 points behind at joint 6th. – yet Canada has different autonomous strategies and different political control for each of its 10 provinces. In the US that applies to all 50 states. Go figure!
Canada is only 3 points behind the UK in mathematics, and just one point behind in science. This is statistically negligible. Yet Canada, with its tiny private system, and in all but one case, avoidance of educational markets, is as unlike England as you can imagine.
As usual, people in different systems are leaping to conclusions to justify their own hobby horses. What we should be more concerned about is two bigger trends.
First, the initial PISA promise that testing will raise achievement has failed spectacularly - as evidenced in a relentless decline in results over two decades.
Second, global declines affecting almost all countries raise questions not about what is happening in this or that educational system, or with one policy or another. What should be grabbing our attention is what is happening to our young people and their families in a world with mounting inequalities, increased conflict and displacement, rampant technological addiction (among the parents as well as their kids), and the lingering traumas of the biggest pandemic in a century (PISA students were 10 years old when the pandemic hit them!) @JonHaidt
The Western world is in a massive state of disrepair. Let’s get a grip on these bigger issues, together, and stop rearranging the nationalistic deckchairs on the global Titanic - and yes, I do have a book coming out about this at the end of the year!
@pasi_sahlberg @Miss_Snuffy @teacherhead @LesWalton500 @steve_munby @dizdarm @LucyMPowell @jon_severs @BeatrizPont @VanDammeEDU @schoolsweek
The Fraser River Keepers swim relay is a really ambitious project. cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c… Great that the NOIIE Nature School Network is connected. Looking forward to being at Garry Point on Sept 4. @noiie_bc @kaser_linda
Judy Halbert retweeted
RETWEET if you stand with Canadian PM Mark Carney and the people of Canada against Donald Trump! 🇨🇦✊🏾
This is what friends and colleagues do.
People lined Interstate 70 and highways across #Colorado on Monday to honor fallen firefighter pilot Nicholas Dale as his body was transported from Montrose to Denver International Airport before returning home to Canada. Dale, a contract firefighting pilot from Sooke, British Columbia, #Canada was killed earlier this month while battling the Gold Mountain Fire near Ouray #US .
This is such a bonus for Vancouver.
Every walk through the Granville Pedestrian Zone leaves me proud of Vancouver.
The energy is contagious, with thousands enjoying live music, public art, local businesses, and the excitement of the FIFA World Cup.
Yesterday, Council voted to extend this successful pedestrian zone through Labour Day so even more people can experience downtown at its best.
Vibrant, welcoming, and full of life. What a moment for our city! ⚽️🇨🇦❤️ @downtownvan @CityofVancouver @KenSimCity @Vote4ABC
telp.educ.ubc.ca/tel-journal…
Check out the articles in the recent TEL journal. Improving grad rates, using a UDL stance to leadership and diving into SRL. All this and more. @noiie_bc @UBCtelp
Thanks to everyone who made NOIIE 2026 Strong Roots - Rising Up such a powerful and joyful learning experience. @noiie_bc @kaser_linda
Judy Halbert retweeted
PM Carney: "Virtue is like a muscle, it grows with exercise. When we are kind, kindness grows. When we seek unity, unity grows. When we are Canadian, Canada grows. And when we are all in for Canada, we will build Canada strong for all."
For all curious educators - don't miss out. Registration closes April 6! @noiie_bc @kaser_linda
Excited about the release of Learning with the Land: A Nature Playbook. @noiie_bc @kaser_linda outdoorlearning.com/product/…
































